"For what?" She came closer.
"Wondering if you--Ha! ha!" Mr. Heatherbloom stopped; in his confusion, his endeavor to turn the conversation from himself and Miss Dalrymple, he seemed to be getting into deep waters.
"You wondered what?" In a low tone.
Since he now felt obliged to speak, he did, coolly enough. "If you had some ulterior motive!" he said with a quiet smile.
She it was who now started back, and her face paled slightly.
"Why?--what ulterior motive? What do you mean?"
He told her in plain words. She breathed more evenly; then smiled sweetly. She had a strange face sometimes. "Thank you," she said. "You are very frank, _mon ami_. I like you none the less for it. Though you did so injure me--in your thoughts!" Her eyes had an enigmatic light.
"Well, I must go now to Miss Dalrymple. She is beginning to be so fond of me." She drawled the last words as if she liked to linger on them.
"You see I, too, have a little Russian blood in me." Mr. Heatherbloom looked down. "And I think she loves to hear me tell of that wonderful country--the white nights of St. Petersburg--the splendid steppes--the grandeur of our Venice of the north. Of course, she is immensely interested in Russia now." Significantly. "Its ostentation, its splendor, its barbaric picturesqueness! But tell me, what is her prince like? He is very handsome, naturally! Or she would not so dote on him!"
Mr. Heatherbloom"s features had hardened; he did not answer directly.
"She likes to talk about Russia?" he said, half to himself.
Marie shrugged. "Is it not to be her country some day?"
"No, it isn"t!" The words seemed forced from his lips; he spoke almost fiercely. "She may live there with him, but it will never be her country. This is her country. She is its product; an American to her finger-tips. And all the grand dukes and princes of the Winter Palace can"t change her. She belongs to old California; she grew up among the orange trees and the flowers, and her heart will ever yearn for them in your frozen land of tyranny!"
"Oh! oh! oh!" said Mademoiselle Marie. "How eloquent monsieur can be!
Quite an orator! One would say he, too, has known this land of orange trees and flowers!"
"I?" Mr. Heatherbloom bit his lip.
But she only shook a finger. "Oh! oh!" Altogether like a different person from his casual acquaintance of the park! He gazed at her closer; how quickly the marks of trouble, anxiety, had faded from her face; as if they had never existed.
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking into eyes now full of a new and peculiar understanding.
"Nothing," she said and vanished.
He gazed where she had been; he could not account for a sudden strange emotion, as if some one had trailed a shadow over him. A premonition of something going to happen; that could not be foreseen, or averted!
Something worse than anything that had gone before! What nonsense! He pressed his lips tightly and went about his duties like an automaton.
Eight days--seven days--six days more!--only six--
CHAPTER VIII
THE UNEXPECTED
The blow fell, a thunderbolt from the clear sky. It dazed certain people at first; it was difficult to realize what had happened, or if anything _had_ really happened. For might not what seemed a deep and dire mystery turn out to be nothing so very mysterious after all? A message would soon come; everything would then be "cleared up" and those most concerned would laugh at their apprehensions. But the hours went by, and the affair remained inexplicable; no word was heard concerning Miss Dalrymple"s whereabouts; she seemed to have disappeared as completely as if she had vanished on the Persian magic carpet. What could it mean? The circ.u.mstances briefly were:
Miss Dalrymple, four or five days before Mr. Heatherbloom"s term of service came to an end, had expressed a desire to revisit her old home and friends in the West. One of a party made up mostly of other Californians--now residents of New York city--the girl had failed to appear on the private car at the appointed time, and the train had pulled out, leaving her behind. At the first important stop a telegram had been handed to a gentleman of the party from Miss Dalrymple; it expressed her regret at having reached the station too late owing to circ.u.mstances she would explain later, and announced her intention of coming on, with her maid, in a few days. They were not to wait anywhere for her but to go right along.
The party did; it was sorry to have lost one of its most popular members but no one thought anything more of the matter until at Denver, after a telegram had been forwarded to the Van Rolsen house, in New York, asking just when Miss Dalrymple would arrive, as camping preparations for a joyous pilgrimage in the mountains were in progress.
Miss Van Rolsen gasped when this message reached her. Miss Dalrymple and her maid--a young woman newly engaged by Miss Van Rolsen--had left the house for the train to which the private car was attached; neither had been heard from since. The aunt had, of course, presumed her niece had gone as planned; she had received no word from her, but supposing she was of a light-hearted, heedless company thought nothing of that. It was possible Miss Dalrymple had actually missed her train; but if so, why had she not returned to her aunt"s house?
Where had she gone? What had become of her? No trace of her could be found. Certain forces in the central railroad office at New York could not discover any evidence that the young girl had taken a subsequent train. There was no record of her name at any ticket office; no state-room had been reserved by, or for her; in fact, telegrams to officials in Chicago and other points west failed to elicit satisfactory information of any kind.
Miss Van Rolsen found herself with something real to worry about; she rose to the occasion; her niece, after all, was everything to her. The Van Rolsen millions were ultimately for her, and the old lady"s every ambition was centered in the girl. She had been proud of her beauty, her social triumphs.
With great determination she set herself to solve the puzzling problem.
Could people thus completely disappear nowadays? It seemed impossible, she a.s.serted, sitting behind closed doors in her library, to the private agent of the secret-service bureau whom she had just "called in."
He begged to differ from her and pointed to a number of cases which had seemed just as strange and mysterious in the beginning. Ransom--the "Black Hand"--Who could say what secret influences had been at work in this case? It was a very important one; Miss Dalrymple had money of her own; she was known to be her aunt"s heiress. The conclusion?--But this was not Morocco, or Turkey, Miss Van Rolsen somewhat vehemently returned.
True; we have had, however, our "civilized" Ransuilis, answered the agent and mentioned a number of names in support of his theory. No doubt, after an interval, Miss Van Rolsen would have news of her niece--through those who had perpetrated the outrage; or she might even receive a few written words from the girl herself. After that it was a question of negotiating, or, while professing to deal with the perpetrators, to ferret them out if one could. The latter course was dangerous, for those who stoop to this particular crime are usually of a desperate type; he and Miss Van Rolsen could consider that question later. Meanwhile she must avoid worry as much as possible. The young girl would, no doubt, be well treated.
Had the speaker looked around at this moment, he might have observed that the heavy curtains, drawn before the door leading into the hall and closed by Miss Van Rolsen, moved suddenly, but neither the agent nor Miss Van Rolsen, engrossed at the far end of the room, noticed. The drapery wavered a moment; then settled once more into its folds.
The telegram purporting to be from Miss Dalrymple to one of the party on the train, could--the agent went on--very easily have been sent by some one else; no doubt, had been. The miscreants had seized upon a lucky combination of circ.u.mstances; for two or three days, while Miss Dalrymple was supposed to be speeding across the continent, they, unsuspected and unmolested, would be afforded every opportunity to convey her to some remote and, for them, safe refuge. It was a cleverly planned coup, and could not have been conceived and consummated without--here he spoke slowly--inside a.s.sistance.
The curtain at the doorway again stirred.
"And now, Madam, we come to your servants," said the police agent. "I should like to know something about them."
"My servants, sir, are, for the most part, old and trusted."
""For the most part"!" He caught at the phrase. "We will deal first with those who do _not_ come in that category."
"There"s a young man recently employed that I have not been at all pleased with. He leaves to-morrow."
"Ah!" said the visitor. "Not the person I met going out of the area way, with the dogs as I came in?"
She answered affirmatively.
"H--mn!" He paused. "But tell me why you have not been pleased with him, and, in brief, all the circ.u.mstances of his coming here."
Miss Van Rolsen did so in a voice she strove to make patient although she could not disguise its tremulousness, or the feverish anxiety that consumed her. She related the most trivial details, seeming irrelevances, but the visitor did not interrupt her. Instead, he studied carefully her face, pinched and worn; the angular figure, slightly bent; the fingers, nervously clasping and unclasping as she spoke. He watched her through habit; and still forbore speaking, even when she referred to the escape of her canine favorite from his caretaker and how the dog had later been returned, though the listener"s eyes had, at this point, dilated slightly.
"After his carelessness in this matter, he seemed to want to get away from the house at once," observed Miss Van Rolsen, "without availing himself of the two-weeks" notice I had agreed to give him."
The visitor relapsed into his chair; an ironical light appeared in his eyes.
"Perhaps," added Miss Van Rolsen, "you attach no significance to the fact?"
"On the contrary, I attach every importance to it. Has it not occurred to you there was a little collusion in this matter of the lost dog?"
"Collusion?" Miss Van Rolsen"s accents expressed incredulity. "You must be wrong. Why, the young woman wouldn"t even accept the reward. And it was not a small one!"
"Two hundred or so dollars, ma"am! Not her stake!" he murmured satirically. "I am afraid two hundred thousand dollars would be nearer the mark these people have set for themselves!"
"But she didn"t ask for a place here; only for me to look over her references--one was from a lady I knew in Paris--and to recommend her to my friends--"